Longtime Potomac restaurant Renato’s at River Falls has been sold and will close Sept. 30, according to the eatery’s chef and its ownership group.
In a Sunday letter addressed to the restaurant’s customers, Potomac Restaurant Group President Joseph Wood said the Italian eatery at 10120 River Road has been sold after searching for a buyer for three and a half years.
Chef Oscar Contreras confirmed the sale Tuesday evening when contacted by MoCo360.
“It is true. Our last day is the 29th,” said the chef, who has worked at the restaurant in the Potomac Place Shopping Center since 2006. When asked how employees were handling the news, he said, “We’re not feeling well. That’s life.”
As also noted in his letter, Wood told MoCo360 in an email Wednesday morning that he was not “at liberty” to disclose who had purchased the eatery.
According to the letter, the restaurant became the single asset of the estate of owner Ashley Grolig when she died in 2021.
“Ashley’s beneficiaries were unable to assume working ownership, and it fell to me to oversee and sell the restaurant to someone who would value its traditions and invest in taking it to a new level of quality of service, something Ashley always wanted to happen,” Wood, the executor of the estate and Grolig’s stepfather, said in the letter.
He noted that though the Potomac Restaurant Group had hoped to keep Renato’s open, the restaurant will close because the buyer “intends to make a major investment in the restaurant space.”
“It had always been our hope that a buyer would purchase the restaurant as is and transition to the new owner would be fairly seamless, continuing uninterrupted with improvements occurring over time,” Wood wrote.
Contreras said employees were told the restaurant would be closed for six months to a year.
In the letter, Wood thanked the restaurant’s staff and Grolig’s family for “being part of Renato’s, whether a longtime customer or a new one.”
“All of us are sad to have to close the Renato’s we know and love,” the letter said. “At the same time, we ask you to look forward to a renewed Renato’s in the future.”
